Co-founders of OODA LLC Matt Devost and Bob Gourley were interviewed by the highly respected innovation expert and entrepreneur Jonathan Aberman for an episode of “What’s Working in Washington.”
An excerpt:
ABERMAN: What the heck is OODA?.
DEVOST: OODA really is a tribute to a concept that was put out first by a guy named Colonel John Boyd. He was a military fighter pilot who had a reputation for being unbeatable in dogfights, and that attracted the attention of the Pentagon and DOJ officials, and they brought him to Washington D.C., and they made him figure out what it was that actually allowed him to outperform all of his peers in that space. And he came up with this concept of OODA: to observe, orient, decide, act, as being the decision cycle that was kind of guiding his abilities in being able to engage in these tactical fights.
And it turns out that OODA is just an incredible framework for thinking about all sorts of issues, national security issues, technology issues, technology security issues, it’s been applied as a framework over the past 20 to 30 years in all sorts of domains. So, we thought it was a great tribute for what we were trying to accomplish with the company, to get a name it after that concept.
ABERMAN: Bob Gourley, how does this apply in the private sector? I often find when I deal with CEOs and companies, particularly in cyber security, it’s more ready, fire, aim.
GOURLEY: Well, frequently, you know, you might need to explain it at first, and as soon as you do, generally a CEO really gets it. And they say, I’ve been doing the OODA loop my entire life, because a good, actionable CEO realizes that even the best strategy is only good temporarily.
Your strategy, if you don’t change it and update it based upon new information, will cause you to fall behind in the marketplace. So, the great CEOs know it’s a dynamic world out there, where you have to take in information and change based upon that dynamic, especially if you’re in a competitive environment.
Read more: OODA: both a philosophy and a company on the rise
Additional Reading:
The Air Traffic Control System: We all assumed it was vulnerable, but now we know
If You Drive A Car, Or Know Someone Who Does, You Must Read This…
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Fred Kaplan Explores The Secret History of Cyber War
What You Need To Know About The Administration’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan
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